Eko Kom Nou Kru
by Ellana-san
Summary: The sky is nothing like Echo imagined. (Echo centered, character study with a touch of Bellamy/Echo, post S4)
1. Eko Kom Nou Kru

_I guess this is what they call a rare pairing ? I have no idea to be honest. Akachankami requested some becho and I just love Echo so much I said yes. Blink and you will miss the ship but it this is Echo centered. =) Let me know what you think!_

 _ **Eko Kom Nou Kru**_

The sky is nothing like Echo imagined.

Three weeks and she is still as lost and bereft as she has been when she first put foot on what the others call 'the ring'. _Raunon_. She still cannot wrap her head around it after a month of living on it. She saw it with her own eyes, she knows they are on an actual ring shaped construction but it does not _feel_ round. She can walk for hours and come back to where she started and she will not have met any proof of curve.

Raven tried to explain the phenomenon to her and she understood it had to do with machineries and science but to her, somehow, it still feels a little like magic. Or sorcery.

She walks around it at night and she yearns for blue sky, grass and trees. She yearns for her trusted bow and the thrill of the hunt. She yearns for the solid companionship of an army at her back, ready to obey her orders. She yearns for war and the blood singing in her veins. She yearns for her sword and a worthy opponent. She yearns for a king or a queen to protect.

She yearns.

There is plenty to do during the day. Or at least, when the clock on the walls or one of her companions tell her it is daytime. Once Raven repaired them, the lights started turning on and off automatically to simulate a dawn and a dusk. It is even more depressing to her.

To feel the caress of the sun on her face…

Echo yearns.

She walks along the dark corridors, the dim lights of what she and Emori call _Naitaim_ between them – night time – enough to find her way. She is uncomfortable with the electrical lights still but she prefers it to the pitch dark black of the first few days on the Ark. She has never been afraid of the dark until she's been confronted to the empty vacuum that is space.

It is all the more lonely during _naitaim_. They all took to their new lives with an ease Echo envies. Harper and Monty are always the first ones to leave after they all shared food from plastic bags – MREs, they are called, which is just as confusing a name as everything else – quickly followed by Murphy and Emori when they bother to attend meal time. Raven and Bellamy often talk late into the night. She is welcomed to stay, she knows, but she never has anything to contribute and so she often leaves them to it.

Now that they have settled and that they can spare the power, they are talking about trying to communicate with the bunker. It is a good thing, Echo thinks, because she also yearns for her kru. What used to be her kru, at least.

They aren't being successful though and Raven doesn't want to risk taking more power from the crops they are trying to grow. There is always plenty of work to do and she is happy to help although reduced to a mindless pair of arms because she doesn't understand half of what they are talking about.

She sought Emori's company at first, assuming the girl would be just as lost as she is… Emori never blinks twice and has a knack for making herself useful though. She is a survivor to the core and while Echo doesn't want to die, she has never felt the same despair to survive. She is a warrior born. Death, to her, is nothing but an inevitable enemy she would one day lose to. It isn't the same for Emori. Outsider she might be but not the fish out of water that Echo is.

She doesn't belong.

 _How can she?_

She brushes her hand against the steel of the wall as she walks, the quiet sound of her footsteps her only companion. She tries to remember what Earth sounds like and she comes to a frightening blank. For a second, she cannot recall the chirping of birds or the ruffling of bushes in the wind. All she can hear is the quiet hum of the engine.

Raven described it to her as the heart of the Ark.

It _is_ a heart.

The heart of the steel beast in whose belly they are trapped.

Often she wonders if she wouldn't have preferred dying down there. Often she resents Bellamy for stilling her hand. Often she hates herself for her cowardice.

Hers would have been an honorable death. Where was honor in the sky?

She stops in front of the biggest window and watches the red ball that the ground has become.

Somehow, _naitaim_ after _naitaim_ she always ends up here.

It is the best place to yearn.

Fresh air that doesn't leave her breathless for more. Food that tastes like actual meat or ripe fruit. Water that doesn't smell of chemicals. The heat of the sun instead of the unforgiving cold of the sky… Snow and fallen leaves and dirt under her fingertips… The comforting rhythm of her own language… Rain pouring down on her face… A lover's hand in her hair… A friendly embrace… _Fayawa._ Warmth.

"It was one of my favorite places when I was a kid."

She doesn't startle but it is a close thing. It only makes her more wary of herself, of who she is up there, that she cannot even hear the untroubled approach of someone who isn't trying to be discreet. She was the best warrior Azgeda had to boost. _Wormana_ to Queen Nia and then to King Roan. Warrior. Spy. Royal guard. Chief war advisor. And now… Now who is she? Echo of nowhere.

Bellamy comes to stand next to her and watches the dead earth in silence.

If she asked, he would leave. At least she thinks he would. He is respectful of other people's wishes up to a point, she has observed. He persists only when he deems it necessary. When Monty becomes too sad over someone named Jasper. When Harper slips into a quiet but obvious panic. When Raven gets angry at something she cannot fix or not quickly enough for her tastes at least. When Murphy gets frustrated by his past deeds. When Emori doubts her acceptance in the group.

It is in her nature to observe, to ascertain the threat they represent, to quantify their weaknesses.

She has been with those people for a month. She knows them now. Better, perhaps, than they know themselves.

They aren't very impressive individually – except maybe for Raven's brain, she isn't much of a warrior but she has a mind Echo cannot help but admire – but when they come together, they are like one of those stories old warriors pass along around a campfire after a battle.

" _Disha ste thonken_." she finds herself saying after a little while.

She has never minded silence and Bellamy's presence is comforting rather than oppressing but the confession slips out before she can think twice about it. She is always more at ease with Bellamy than she is with the others.

Maybe because he grieves and she understands his pain.

She lost a king.

He lost a queen.

"I used to think that too." he shrugs. "The Ark… Space… It _does_ feel hollow. Then I got down to Earth and… I realized I was the hollow one." He paused for a bit and then a sad smile played on his lips. He hasn't bothered shaving in a few days and there is the shadow of a beard on his jaw. She likes it and she hates how her body reacts to the thought of how that stubble would feel under her fingertips or against the soft skin of her inner thighs. She hasn't laid with a man in too long. Her eyes dart back up when he speaks again, his own gaze still riveted to the burning planet below. "It's what you make of the world around you that counts, what you _do_ to make it better. I was lucky enough to meet people who taught me that."

"Clarke." she says with confidence and respect. She might not have seen eye to eye with Wanheda on every subject but she's seen enough to admire the girl's skills. _Clark kom skaikru_ had the spirit of a leader.

"She was one of them, yeah." Bellamy confirms with the same pain in his voice there always is when he mentions her. Love takes long to wither, she knows this and doesn't push. "Kane too."

" _Skaikrus bandrona_. Your ambassador" she clarifies.

She has spent less time with him than with Wanheda and while she knows King Roan has held respect and even affection for the man, she never had a real opportunity to make a clear idea for herself. Alliances shifted too often for trust and without trust it is hard to make an honest opinion of a person.

"He is our Chancellor too." he reminds her, a bit short, as if she is disrespecting Marcus Kane by forgetting that fact.

 _Chancellor_ holds little meaning to her. It is merely a word she has no translation for. Marcus Kane is no king to his people. He is no heda or chief. _Those_ are titles that matter. _Chancellor_ … She doesn't know what to make of a role that keeps switching from people to people. Leading a kru is a sacred duty for her people, not something that is left to chance as Skaikru seems to be doing. Leaders emerge from chaos. They are not brought upon by a consensus.

Besides, it seemed to her as if Wanheda was the one in charge. Clarke has certainly been the one making decisions.

" _Yu hodnes em."_ she states.

It's not really a question. She sees it on his face. He loves that man he talks about with so much respect.

"He is a great chancellor." he retorts, almost defensive. Or even _embarrassed_. "A great man."

"He was your king. Or its equivalent anyway." she frowns. "There is no shame in loving your king."

"There's no reason to assume he didn't make it into the bunker. He still _is_ my chancellor." he snaps and there is nothing but anger and frustration in his voice this time. Helplessness too, maybe. There was no time for his sister to say for sure who would live and who would die. She understands. If she had been uncertain as to the fate of her own king, she would have been distressed too. She prefers to keep her peace, let him cool down on his own. She achieves more like this than by pushing him. She only pushes when she is out of options. It is almost two whole minutes before he speaks again. "I never knew my dad. It's stupid probably but… Kane… Kane was good to me."

She wonders if that's why he stopped shaving, to be more like the surrogate father he left behind.

"You miss him." she ventures.

"What aren't we missing those days?" he snorts without any amusement.

For a second, she sees how ragged he really is.

Bellamy is always walking around, it seems, checking on everyone, making sure they all stick together, always promising it would get easier and that they would walk on the ground again… He is the one making sure they don't fall apart.

But, Echo realizes, nobody comforts _him_.

He never lets them see that he needs it.

Like a true leader would. He puts his kru first and his own needs come second to that.

"I missed my father's advice for a long time after he passed." she confides. "He was a warrior. He died a noble death."

It is the important thing, she reminds herself, as always when the sorrow wants to grip her heart with its cold dead claws. Her father died a honorable death like her mother before him. Both renown warriors of Queen Nia. Both celebrated long after their passing. It doesn't stop her from missing his voice or her perfume. It doesn't stop her from wishing they hadn't been torn away from her. But war is a merciless creature. She understands it better than she understands some people.

"I wonder about what happened to people from Azgeda too." she adds. "Octavia promised me the clan would have a place with the rest of them."

"Then, she kept her promise." he offers quietly, with enough certainty to calm the nasty doubts that rise on some days. "Your clan will survive."

She shakes her head, crossing her arms in front of her chest even though she knows it will betray her distress. "Azgeda isn't my clan any longer. My king banished me. _Ai laik dim Eko kom Azgeda noumo._ _Ai laik Eko kom nou kru. Ai laik Eko kom dropof._ "

She hates herself for betraying how bitter she is about it, how bitter she feels… She hates this feeling of not belonging. She has always been part of something bigger. She has always served. Her life for the one wearing the crown.

"You're not from _nowhere_." he frowns.

"Yet here I am, in the middle of nowhere." she argues. "Not only lost to my people but lost in the sky. Before we left you told me we would be tested… Is this my test? Tell me, Bellamy, what is a general without an army to command? What is a spy without people to spy on? What am I?"

Bellamy moves away from the window but it is her turn to resolutely stare at the scorched Earth. Even when he leans against the thick glass to study her, she doesn't let her gaze stray away, pretending the burning sensation in her eyes comes from looking too long at the red blaze.

"Okay." he says eventually and he sounds amused. As if she is being stupid. That's another thing she hates about the sky. Echo isn't stupid, far from it. She is a strategist. She knows how to win hopeless battles. She is fast and she is clever. It is why she's been raised to a position of power so young in the first place. And yet their science makes her feel like an idiot. Emori is better at hiding her confusion and has experience on Becca's island that Echo lacks. Bellamy's amusement angers her but before she can lash out he continues. "One: don't go wishing for wars, you're going to jinx us. Two… You're not Echo of no clan, you're one of us now."

She does look at him, then. Out of surprise if nothing else.

She never really thought about it like that. _A clan_. And yet now that he said the word, she sees it.

She's speechless for a second and it's all it takes for Bellamy to shuffle awkwardly.

"Look, I know there's some bad blood between us…" he winces.

"There is." she acknowledges quickly. "But we saved each other a few times too. What I did I did out of duty, it was my clan against yours. It was never me against you."

His face hardens and she knows he's thinking about the mountain. Or maybe he's thinking that she almost killed his sister twice. She can't deny not feeling a lot of remorse over _Moun-de_ but she is glad she hasn't beat Octavia. _Oktavia_ _kom Skaikru_ is someone she wouldn't have minded calling _Heda._

"It doesn't matter." he declares and his face softens again, his eyes sparkle and she is glad to see the twinkle that disappeared with Clarke's death is coming back. "You proved yourself those last few weeks. So… What do you say? We're just a band of misfits trying to survive in a hostile environment but… We can be your clan if you want us."

A fourteenth clan. Of sort.

She pauses to think about what that would mean when they would go back to the ground – _if_ they go back to the ground, she understands it will be just as difficult as going _up_ – and she decides it doesn't matter. Her first loyalty has always been to her people. She has been bereft without a clan and now…

" _Gon ai koma, kom ai swison. Ai badan yu op, ai Haihefa."_ The traditional oath rolls off her tongue with ease. How many time did she practice it so it would be flawless when Queen Nia elevated her to power? She has never meant them with as much fervor as she does now though. Maybe because Bellamy gave her a place to belong when she had no purpose. Maybe because he is someone she would be proud to serve. He seems lost and unsure. She thinks it might be because her language confuses him as much as his sometimes confuses her, so she translates for him, so there will be no doubt about her allegiances. "On my honor, with my sword. I serve you, my king."

He takes a hasty step back, a look of horror mixed with terror on his face. "I'm no one's king, Echo. We're all equal here."

He is either blind or unwilling to admit the power he wields. If anyone's been certain of one thing since they reached the Ark, it's that Bellamy is in charge. It has remained unspoken but it is in every order given and received.

She almost argues but decides to allow him his discretion for now. It doesn't matter to her as long as it is clear who is in charge. And if unrest ever rose… She would be ready to shield him. As her duty dictates.

"I will be proud to be a part of your clan." she nods.

He relaxes and squeezes her shoulder. "You already are. I just didn't think you saw it."

She averts her eyes, unwilling to disclose more but aware that a month in close proximity – and the five years that would follow – doesn't allow much privacy. "It is difficult not to belong."

"You belong." he insisted, squeezing her shoulder again.

His hand is warm. She can feel it through the thick frayed woolen sweatshirt she had found abandoned in a room. She craved that warmth but she doesn't quite dare claim it as hers.

Not yet.

Not until his heart stopped bleeding for the one he lost.

She doesn't like the idea of being the default choice, she will conquer his heart just like she conquered impossible battlefields. It is something to look forward to. Something to hope for the future.

Not yet.

But _soon_ , she thinks.


	2. Spin Raun Gon

**Spin Raun Gon**

Echo's eyes remain on the window, every of her movement precisely calculated as she stares out into the dark void that stretches outside. Sometimes, depending on what she's doing and at which point of its rotation the ring is, she can glimpse pieces of metal. In the darkness of space, they look like looming shadows, the jaws of a mysterious beast trying to challenge them. _Raunon_ is the biggest beast though and nothing exterior can hurt it. The danger comes from within.

Six months and she still is not used to the humming of the beast's heart.

If she places her hand against a wall, she will feel it, a barely there tremor that she has come to learn means safety. It stopped twice already and it has almost meant their death. Without Raven…

She hears the footsteps long before the other woman appears on the threshold of the room Echo has claimed for herself. She doesn't stop moving.

She looked but she has found no sword nor bow on _Raunon_ and she is still uncomfortable with _Skaikrus_ guns. They are too obvious a weapon when everyone goes unarmed anyway. She is a part of the kru because Bellamy declared so but she needs the others to trust her, to rely on her, and they would not take well to her walking around with a gun at her belt. She found knives but nothing that she would ever consider hunting with. She keeps one in her boot all the same, it never hurts to be prepared.

She doesn't need weapons anyway.

 _She_ is the weapon.

Or at least she used to be before space stole her breath. Even then, as cold sweat runs down her nape, her muscles cramp and protest because her lungs can't provide enough oxygen. Training always makes her light-headed and yet she still trains, day after day. She abandoned any thought of actual fighting because that leaves her drained but she keeps her body in shape, sharpens it like she would have done with her sword or the point of her arrows…

A warrior takes care of her weapons. It is the first rule of war.

 _Spin raun gon_ isn't her training of choice. It is slow and to an exterior eye it looks like an odd sort of dancing. It is in some ways. Taught to warriors whose stealth is as important as their strength. It is not meant as a path to fighting but as a way to ground oneself, to learn balance and reach peace of mind. She rejected it early enough and cannot remember all of its moves now but it is all she has and so she clings to it.

It is enough to feel the strain in her muscles and to make her body sing to the tune of war.

What she wishes for, more than anything else, is an opponent. Bellamy humors her sometimes – and inevitably loses to her superior skills despite his stronger built – but not often. _Raunon_ isn't a place for warriors.

The distinctive footsteps finally stop on the threshold and Echo waits for Raven to speak. It isn't _naitaim_ yet but it will be soon. The lights will dim and the night will start and Echo will roam the corridors like she always does, what started as an idle stroll having turned into a patrol in the last few months.

She doesn't know why she insists because there is no enemy on _Raunon_ , no one to haunt the steel corridors but the seven of them, and no threat from outside, none _she_ would be able to beat anyway – they have Raven and Monty for _those_ , brains over strength. The metal beast keeps them safe. And yet she patrols. _Habits_.

"You will have to teach me how to do that, one day." Raven says.

Echo doesn't spare her a glance, focused on the window and the angle of her leg as she balances on one foot, arms pushing high above her head. Short of breath. Always too short of breath.

She can't remember what real air feels like when it flows freely in one's lungs.

"Harper joins me sometimes." she answers. " _Yu laik monin._ You are welcomed."

It has been difficult for her to _bond_ with the rest of the kru. Bellamy was the easy one. Harper was surprising but she is the one who offered a hand first and Echo took it. It took some time for Monty to learn to trust her but she likes to think they are comrades now. It stings maybe that Emori, who is the closest thing to home she has, keeps away but Emori and John always live on the fringe of the group, always keep to themselves and she does not resent it because she is not singled out, simply not a part of their world. Raven is the one who pauses a challenge though.

Even now, she can't really tell if they are friends.

They are not enemies.

There is no room for enemies on _Raunon_.

Survival means cooperating.

And they are all in the same kru. It does not mean they all have to get along but that _does_ mean they have to protect each other. Tempers flare sometimes but for the most part living in space is difficult enough that they do not waste time fighting each other.

"I don't think I'd be very good at it." the woman snorts with bitterness.

Despite her will to focus, Echo's eyes dart to the metal contraption that encases Raven's leg. It puzzles her how open the _skai_ people are about their weaknesses. It makes them vulnerable and they don't even notice.

Sometimes, she thinks it's a good thing they have her.

She doesn't show her weaknesses, she doesn't allow herself to be vulnerable.

And if something or someone ever tries to attack them, it is what will save them all.

She is Bellamy's _wormana_ and she will not fail her king, even if he refuses to admit that it is who he is to their kru.

"You won't know until you try." she dismisses, planting her two feet back of the floor.

Her body yearns for some real action but she is already sweaty and cold and she knows better than to push too hard. She passed out once, because there is not enough air to sustain her body if she goes past a certain point. She can run precisely fifteen minutes before feeling nauseous – and that if she keeps a tame pace.

She hates feeling this weak.

" _Yu gaf ai in?_ " she asks, picking up her towel to wipe her face. Then, she forces herself to translate because not everyone speaks her language on _Raunon_ and Raven is of those who is the least interested in learning. She hates this too. The second it always takes her to make sure she understood them right. "Do you need me?"

She has muscles and Raven sometimes takes advantage of that when she works on a project to try and make their life easier. She doesn't mind helping, it gives her a purpose.

"We're eating in Earth Monitoring station tonight." Raven tells her. "We're having a movie night. Monty and I managed to divert enough power."

She frowns at the other young woman.

"Movie?" she repeats, unfamiliar with the word.

"It's like a story but with images that move." Raven shrugs. "You'll see. It's fun."

Fun, to her, is a good sword fight but she doubts Raven would understand so she holds her tongue. She observed already that her kru seems desperate to find fun anywhere they can get it. Monty perfects moonshine bash after moonshine bash – and this is a hobby she, in fact, does not object to – and Murphy urges for them all to party. Once, he made loud music blurt out of _Raunon's_ every speakers and instead of punishing him for it, they all started dancing and laughing like children on the loose.

"What kind of story?" she asks, curious despite herself. It seems she can never run out of things to be puzzled by. Space is full of them. She sometimes wonders if they were just as thrown with the ground as she is in their metal beast.

Raven shrugs and sits on the bed while Echo changes her shirt for a clean one, not bothered in the least by the other woman's presence. "I don't know, it's Monty's pick."

That doesn't explain much, she thinks, freeing her hair from the shirt's collar. She's been braiding it lately. Tight small cornrow braids that keeps it out of her eyes. There is time to waste in the sky and not much to do. It is a practical warrior hairdo, of course, but it also looks pretty and she cannot deny it flatters her vanity.

"Is there news from the ground?" she asks even if it is pointless. Twice a day at the same designated times, Raven tries to contact the bunker and twice a day she fails. If she had managed, Echo would have heard about it by now. And yet she still asks every time she sees Raven. It is a part of keeping hope that it would one day change. They all do the same thing.

"No." Raven shakes her head, her face closing off. "It doesn't mean they're dead."

"It doesn't mean they're alive either." she opposes.

Isn't that a weird thought. They don't know and thus they are both alive and dead. There is no mourning them and yet there aren't many reasons to hope. She does not like the uncertainty.

"Aren't you a ray of sunshine." Raven snorts. It's not quite meant as a joke. There is the same underlying tension underneath that always ends up in their exchanges.

Echo killed her friends and she understands the other woman's resentment. Raven is not a warrior, she does not understand that she did what she had to like Bellamy does. People who aren't warriors don't forgive as easily.

"Why did you come?" she asks, unwilling to play a game of deceit. She doesn't like being on the defense when she can attack.

"To tell you we're having a movie night." Raven lies, using the edge of a nearby table to haul herself up. Echo does not miss the wincing when she puts her weight on her bad leg. She waits. She waits because it is not why the other woman really came and, surely enough, Raven rolls her eyes and folds her arms in front of her chest. "I don't like you."

" _Rait bitam_." she accepts. Fair enough.

She isn't sure Raven understands her words, the woman studies her for a long time and then shrugs. "I told Bellamy I would give you a chance."

That surprises her, all the more so if she means it. She is a bit insulted Bellamy is going around behind her back to talk about her but a part of her also is warmed by the thought that he worries about her enough to do that. She is part of his kru. He said so and she believed him but it is good to _feel_ it.

She supposes the way she averts her eyes betrays her and, really, she should have known better. She is slipping. From _wormana_ to a ridiculous village girl with a crush.

"He likes you." Raven says and there is a hint of warning in there.

Not for the first time, she wonders if there is something going on between them but she never saw any tangible proof of an attachment or an arrangement.

"He loves Wanheda." she counters.

And it will be some time before he is done grieving for her death, she knows. When he _does_ , she will be waiting. She can be patient. All the best hunters are. When he _does_ , she will be there and she will conquer. But not before.

"We all loved Clarke." Raven states, the tension briefly leaving her shoulders, replaced by a familiar sorrow Echo understands only too well.

She lost too many good commanders, too many good friends.

"Not like he did." she whispers quietly. Not a question but a statement.

"No. Not like he did." the other woman admits, her face hardening again. "Don't hurt him or I will kick your ass."

There is little chances that Raven can _actually_ kick her ass but Echo smiles all the same because she appreciates the sentiment. It is good to know she is not the only one looking out for their leader's wellbeing. Maybe they can bond over that, she thinks, over their friendship with Bellamy.

She bows her head in acknowledgement and Raven smiles back. Maybe it's a little forced, maybe she's trying a little too hard, but when the woman lights up like this, there is no resisting being swept by the whirlwind. Raven's mind goes too fast and too far for most people to follow.

"So. Movie night." Raven declares, grabbing her shoulder to nudge her toward the door. "You're sitting next to me so I can explain and make fun of you when you don't get the story."

She is not an idiot and she is offended by the implication that she won't understand a simple story – even if it's likely to be true if the story is based on the ground from before _Praimfaya_ – but she can recognize an offer of peace when she sees one.

It is an olive branch she intends to seize.


End file.
